Massachusetts had made an easy conquest of all Acadia; a conquest, however, which she had neither the men nor the money to secure by sufficient garrisons.
Our special project presenting the definitive account of France in Canada by Francis Parkman, one of America’s greatest historians.
Previously in Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV. Continuing Chapter 12.
Phips now sent Captain Alden, who had already taken possession of Saint-Castin’s post at Penobscot, to seize upon La Hêve, Chedabucto, and other stations on the southern coast. Then, after providing for the reduction of the settlements at the head of the Bay of Fundy, he sailed, with the rest of the fleet, for Boston, where he arrived triumphant on the thirtieth of May, bringing with him, as prisoners, the French governor, fifty-nine soldiers, and the two priests, Petit and Trouvé. Massachusetts had made an easy conquest of all Acadia; a conquest, however, which she had neither the men nor the money to secure by sufficient garrisons.
The conduct of the New England commander in this affair does him no credit. It is true that no blood was spilt, and no revenge taken for the repeated butcheries of unoffending and defenseless settlers. It is true, also, that the French appear to have acted in bad faith. But Phips, on the other hand, displayed a scandalous rapacity. Charlevoix says that he robbed Meneval of all his money; but Meneval himself affirms that he gave it to the English commander for safe keeping, and that Phips and his wife would return neither the money nor various other articles belonging to the captive governor, whereof the following are specified: “Six silver spoons, six silver forks, one silver cup in the shape of a gondola, a pair of pistols, three new wigs, a gray vest, four pair of silk garters, two dozen of shirts, six vests of dimity, four nightcaps with lace edgings, all my table service of fine tin, all my kitchen linen,” and many other items which give an amusing insight into Meneval’s housekeeping.
[An Account of the Silver and Effects which Mr. Phips keeps back from Mr. Meneval, in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll., I. 115.
Monseignat and La Potherie describe briefly this expedition against Port Royal. In the archives of Massachusetts are various papers concerning it, among which are Governor Bradstreet’s instructions to Phips, and a complete invoice of the plunder. Extracts will be found in Professor Bowen’s Life of Phips, in Sparks’s American Biography, VII. There is also an order of council, “Whereas the French soldiers lately brought to this place from Port Royal did surrender on capitulation,” they shall be set at liberty. Meneval, Lettre au Ministre, 29 Mai, 1690, says that there was a capitulation, and that Phips broke it. Perrot, former governor of Acadia, accuses both Meneval and the priest Petit of being in collusion with the English. Perrot à de Chevry, 2 Juin, 1690. The same charge is made as regards Petit in Mémoire sur l’Acadie, 1691.
Charlevoix’s account of this affair is inaccurate. He ascribes to Phips acts which took place weeks after his return, such as the capture of Chedabucto.]
Meneval, with the two priests, was confined in a house at Boston, under guard. He says that he petitioned the governor and council for redress; “but, as they have little authority and stand in fear of Phips, who is supported by the rabble, to which he himself once belonged, and of which he is now the chief, they would do nothing for me.” [1] This statement of Meneval is not quite correct: for an order of the council is on record, requiring Phips to restore his chest and clothes; and, as the order received no attention, Governor Bradstreet wrote to the refractory commander a note, enjoining him to obey it at once. [2] Phips thereupon gave up some of the money and the worst part of the clothing, still keeping the rest. [3] After long delay, the council released Meneval: upon which, Phips and the populace whom he controlled demanded that he should be again imprisoned; but the “honest people” of the town took his part, his persecutor was forced to desist, and he set sail covertly for France. [4] This, at least, is his own account of the affair.
[1: Mémoire présenté à M. de Ponchartrain par M. de Meneval, 6 Avril, 1691.]
[2: This note, dated 7 Jan., 1691, is cited by Bowen in his Life of Phips, Sparks’s American Biography, VII.]
[3: Mémoire de Meneval.]
[4: Ibid.]
As Phips was to play a conspicuous part in the events that immediately followed, some notice of him will not be amiss. He is said to have been one of twenty-six children, all of the same mother, and was born in 1650 at a rude border settlement, since called Woolwich, on the Kennebec. His parents were ignorant and poor; and till eighteen years of age he was employed in keeping sheep. Such a life ill-suited his active and ambitious nature. To better his condition, he learned the trade of ship-carpenter, and, in the exercise of it, came to Boston, where he married a widow with some property, beyond him in years, and much above him in station. About this time, he learned to read and write, though not too well, for his signature is like that of a peasant. Still aspiring to greater things, he promised his wife that he would one day command a king’s ship and own a “fair brick house in the Green Lane of North Boston,” a quarter then occupied by citizens of the better class. He kept his word at both points. Fortune was inauspicious to him for several years; till at length, under the pressure of reverses, he conceived the idea of conquering fame and wealth at one stroke, by fishing up the treasure said to be stored in a Spanish galleon wrecked fifty years before somewhere in the West Indian seas. Full of this project, he went to England, where, through influences which do not plainly appear, he gained a hearing from persons in high places, and induced the admiralty to adopt his scheme. A frigate was given him, and he sailed for the West Indies; whence, after a long search, he returned unsuccessful, though not without adventures which proved his mettle. It was the epoch of the buccaneers; and his crew, tired of a vain and toilsome search, came to the quarterdeck, armed with cutlasses, and demanded of their captain that he should turn pirate with them. Phips, a tall and powerful man, instantly fell upon them with his fists, knocked down the ringleaders, and awed them all into submission. Not long after, there was a more formidable mutiny; but, with great courage and address, he quelled it for a time, and held his crew to their duty till he had brought the ship into Jamaica and exchanged them for better men.
Though the leaky condition of the frigate compelled him to abandon the search, it was not till he had gained information which he thought would lead to success; and, on his return, he inspired such confidence that the Duke of Albemarle, with other noblemen and gentlemen, gave him a fresh outfit, and dispatched him again on his Quixotic errand. This time he succeeded, found the wreck, and took from it gold, silver, and jewels to the value of three hundred thousand pounds sterling. The crew now leagued together to seize the ship and divide the prize; and Phips, pushed to extremity, was compelled to promise that every man of them should have a share in the treasure, even if he paid it himself. On reaching England, he kept his pledge so well that, after redeeming it, only sixteen thousand pounds was left as his portion, which, however, was an ample fortune in the New England of that day. He gained, too, what he valued almost as much, the honor of knighthood. Tempting offers were made him of employment in the royal service; but he had an ardent love for his own country, and thither he presently returned.
Phips was a rude sailor, bluff, prompt, and choleric. He never gave proof of intellectual capacity; and such of his success in life as he did not owe to good luck was due probably to an energetic and adventurous spirit, aided by a blunt frankness of address that pleased the great, and commended him to their favor. Two years after the expedition to Port Royal, the king, under the new charter, made him governor of Massachusetts, a post for which, though totally unfit, he had been recommended by the elder Mather, who, like his son Cotton, expected to make use of him. He carried his old habits into his new office, cudgeled Brinton, the collector of the port, and belabored Captain Short of the royal navy with his cane. Far from trying to hide the obscurity of his origin, he leaned to the opposite foible, and was apt to boast of it, delighting to exhibit himself as a self-made man. New England writers describe him as honest in private dealings; but, in accordance with his coarse nature, he seems to have thought that anything is fair in war. On the other hand, he was warmly patriotic, and was almost as ready to serve New England as to serve himself.
[An excellent account of Phips will be found in Professor Bowen’s biographical notice, already cited. His Life by Cotton Mather is excessively eulogistic.]
When he returned from Port Royal, he found Boston alive with martial preparation. A bold enterprise was afoot. Massachusetts of her own motion had resolved to attempt the conquest of Quebec. She and her sister colonies had not yet recovered from the exhaustion of Philip’s war, and still less from the disorders that attended the expulsion of the royal governor and his adherents. The public treasury was empty, and the recent expeditions against the eastern Indians had been supported by private subscription. Worse yet, New England had no competent military commander. The Puritan gentlemen of the original emigration, some of whom were as well fitted for military as for civil leadership, had passed from the stage; and, by a tendency which circumstances made inevitable, they had left none behind them equally qualified. The great Indian conflict of fifteen years before had, it is true, formed good partisan chiefs, and proved that the New England yeoman, defending his family and his hearth, was not to be surpassed in stubborn fighting; but, since Andros and his soldiers had been driven out, there was scarcely a single man in the colony of the slightest training or experience in regular war. Up to this moment, New England had never asked help of the mother country. When thousands of savages burst on her defenseless settlements, she had conquered safety and peace with her own blood and her own slender resources; but now, as the proposed capture of Quebec would inure to the profit of the British crown, Bradstreet and his council thought it not unfitting to ask for a supply of arms and ammunition, of which they were in great need. [5] The request was refused, and no aid of any kind came from the English government, whose resources were engrossed by the Irish war.
[5: Bradstreet and Council to the Earl of Shrewsbury, 29 Mar., 1690; Danforth to Sir H. Ashurst, 1 April, 1690.]
While waiting for the reply, the colonial authorities urged on their preparations, in the hope that the plunder of Quebec would pay the expenses of its conquest. Humility was not among the New England virtues, and it was thought a sin to doubt that God would give his chosen people the victory over papists and idolaters; yet no pains were spared to ensure the divine favor. A proclamation was issued, calling the people to repentance; a day of fasting was ordained; and, as Mather expresses it, “the wheel of prayer was kept in continual motion.” [6] The chief difficulty was to provide funds. An attempt was made to collect a part of the money by private subscription; [7] but, as this plan failed, the provisional government, already in debt, strained its credit yet farther, and borrowed the needful sums. Thirty-two trading and fishing vessels, great and small, were impressed for the service. The largest was a ship called the “Six Friends,” engaged in the dangerous West India trade, and carrying forty-four guns. A call was made for volunteers, and many enrolled themselves; but, as more were wanted, a press was ordered to complete the number. So rigorously was it applied that, what with voluntary and enforced enlistment, one town, that of Gloucester, was deprived of two-thirds of its fencible men. [8] There was not a moment of doubt as to the choice of a commander, for Phips was imagined to be the very man for the work. One John Walley, a respectable citizen of Barnstable, was made second in command with the modest rank of major; and a sufficient number of shipmasters, merchants, master mechanics, and substantial farmers, were commissioned as subordinate officers. About the middle of July, the committee charged with the preparations reported that all was ready. Still there was a long delay. The vessel sent early in spring to ask aid from England had not returned. Phips waited for her as long as he dared, and the best of the season was over when he resolved to put to sea. The rustic warriors, duly formed into companies, were sent on board; and the fleet sailed from Nantasket on the ninth of August. Including sailors, it carried twenty-two hundred men, with provisions for four months, but insufficient ammunition and no pilot for the St. Lawrence. [9]
[6: Mass. Colonial Records, 12 Mar., 1690; Mather, Life of Phips.]
[7: Proposals for an Expedition against Canada, in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll., X. 119.]
[8: Rev. John Emerson to Wait Winthrop, 26 July, 1690. Emerson was the minister of Gloucester. He begs for the release of the impressed men.]
[9: Mather, Life of Phips, gives an account of the outfit. Compare the Humble Address of Divers of the Gentry, Merchants and others inhabiting in Boston, to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty. Two officers of the expedition, Walley and Savage, have left accounts of it, as Phips would probably have done, had his literary acquirements been equal to the task.]
From Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV, Chapter 12 by Francis Parkman
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The below is from Francis Parkman’s Introduction.
If, at times, it may seem that range has been allowed to fancy, it is so in appearance only; since the minutest details of narrative or description rest on authentic documents or on personal observation.
Faithfulness to the truth of history involves far more than a research, however patient and scrupulous, into special facts. Such facts may be detailed with the most minute exactness, and yet the narrative, taken as a whole, may be unmeaning or untrue. The narrator must seek to imbue himself with the life and spirit of the time. He must study events in their bearings near and remote; in the character, habits, and manners of those who took part in them, he must himself be, as it were, a sharer or a spectator of the action he describes.
With respect to that special research which, if inadequate, is still in the most emphatic sense indispensable, it has been the writer’s aim to exhaust the existing material of every subject treated. While it would be folly to claim success in such an attempt, he has reason to hope that, so far at least as relates to the present volume, nothing of much importance has escaped him. With respect to the general preparation just alluded to, he has long been too fond of his theme to neglect any means within his reach of making his conception of it distinct and true.
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